Raya chuckled.
Q shut his eyes. “I can even see the question written all over your face. You want to know how I feel about Lily being the source of my dreams about the Elsewhere Express.” He peeked through his lashes. “Am I right?”
“Did the tether snitch on me again?”
“It didn’t have to. I’d want to know the same thing if you were the one on the receiving end of Lily’s discarded dreams.”
“You’ve lived with this mystery twisting inside you for so long, Q. It must feel strange to finally have an answer. And have that answer be ‘Lily.’ ”
“What’s stranger is that I’m relieved that it’s her.”
Raya arched a brow. “You are?”
“When Astrid said that the strange dreams I had as a boy came from a passenger on the Elsewhere Express, the first thing I thought about was finding that person. Now that I know who that passenger is, I can thank her.”
“Thank Lily? For what?”
“Without those dreams, I would never have picked up a paintbrush. Lily’s dreams might have just been excess baggage for her, but to me, the paintings they inspired shared the weight of a life I couldn’t have carried on my own.”
“I’m glad you found the answer you were looking for, Q,” Raya said.
“Except that it brought a friend. Another question I need to answer.”
“An interesting one, I hope.” Rasmus carried over a tray of fragrant tea and ginger biscuits. Abbie peeked out from his shirt pocket. “Good questions always go well with tea. It will give us something to do while keeping watch on the bells.” He set the tray down on a reading table. “Drinking and eating aren’t allowed in the Archive, but tonight, I think we can make an exception, right, Abbie?”
Abbie rolled her eight eyes.
A garden of green tea buds, jasmine, yellow chrysanthemums, and a single deep-crimson amaranth bloomed inside the glass teapot. “You’re in for a treat.” Rasmus poured the tea into cups. “This tea is made from the sweetest daydreams of a man who liked to reminisce about his long career as a librarian. There was nothing he loved more than the smell of books and the sound of rustling pages.”
Steam, in the shape of petals, floated up from the cups, carrying the scent of ripe pomelo and a spring afternoon spent curled up with a good book. Raya breathed it in. “It smells lovely.”
“Wait until you taste it.” Rasmus turned to Q. “Now, about your question. Is it something I can help you with?”
“It’s about dreams I used to have,” Q said.
Rasmus picked up a biscuit. “What sort of dreams?”
“The kind that get tossed off the train every night.”
“Ah. Night dreams.” Rasmus took a bite of the biscuit and chewed. “I’m listening.”
“My dreams came from Lily.”
Rasmus raised his brows. “How do you know they came from her?”
“I saw her face, or I should say, faces, in my dreams. Including the face she’s wearing today.”
“And you’d like to know how you could have dreamt of a face she only wore today.” Rasmus took a sip of his tea. “That’s a very interesting question. With a very simple answer.” A bell hanging next to the onyx pedestal rang. Rasmus jumped from his chair and sprinted to it, Abbie clinging to his shirt.
Raya and Q hurried after him.
Rasmus squinted at the tinkling bell as though reading something in fine print. He swallowed hard. “The storm’s gathering in the engine.”
Raya pulled the crystal train from her tote. “We’ll head there now.”
“You can’t.” Rasmus hung his head and kneaded his thick nape. “It’s the one car on the Elsewhere Express where the crystal train can’t take you.”
No one visited the engine because no one ever needed to. The Elsewhere Express did not require any assistance to keep the engine running. In time, the doorway to the engine was forgotten, its existence preserved by a single footnote in a dusty first edition of the train’s manual. The edition had fallen into disuse, leaving its designated spot on Rasmus’s bookcase only when he needed a place to take a nap or fill red balloons with laughter.
